at it grieved him that I so obstinately persisted
in my strict principles. I therefore sometimes afforded him the
satisfaction of appearing to agree with him, and of yielding to his
favourite whim, that all upon earth was but a play of expediency.

The evening previous to the day on which the sentence was passed I was
with him; we were cheerfully sitting at our wine, until midnight, and
swore everlasting friendship to each other till death.

"Tell me, Colas, do you know Clementine de Sonnes?"

I blushed. Wine and confidence in his friendship elicited the holy
secret. Bertollon laughed immoderately, exclaiming repeatedly,
"Simpleton that you are! you are everywhere tricked by your heavenly
virtue. Pray be rational for once, why have you not told me this long
since? She would now be your betrothed; well, she shall be yours, here
is my hand upon it. With prudence we may subdue the world, why not a
girl or a proud family? I have already observed that Clementine is not
likely to refuse you."

In raptures I clasped my friend in my arms. "Oh! if you could do that,
Bertollon, you would make me happy--make me a god."

"So much the better, for I shall still want your divine assistance for
some pet plan. A girl so like your Clementine that they might be taken
for sisters. Such a girl lives at Adze. You simpletons have hitherto
thought that I go there as frequently as I do for the sake of pure air
or business. No; I love the girl inexpressibly; no woman ever fettered
me like her. As soon as I am rid of my wife I shall court the Venus of
Adze. But then, M. Colas, I shall trouble you not to have such
conversations with my future wife as you used to enjoy with my first
one."

"What, Bertollon!" I exclaimed, confounded; "you will marry again?"

"Certainly. Look you. I at first thought you were going to play a
romance in due form with my wife; I thought you really loved her, in
which case I would have resigned her to you, and then we could have
come to some arrangement in the affair. I should have liked it very
well, and we should not have had all this ado about the poison which
had nearly gone against me."

"But how do you mean, Bertollon? I do not quite understand you."

"I must tell you, you innocent. In my wife's absence, I one evening
secretly searched her drawers--you may laugh; you see I did not quite
trust you at that time, with all your virtue; for I thought you had
exchanged love letters of grief a